Transcripts For CSPAN Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Dis

CSPAN Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Discusses The Future Of NATO April 17, 2017

Later a look at russias foreignpolicy objectives and its relations with the u. S. And europe from the center for the national interest. Our live coverage begins at 12 40 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Nato secretarygeneral Jens Stoltenberg was in washington this week for a twoday visit. Of his stops included a speech at George Washington university where he took questions from students. Topics included russias military buildup and the syrian civil war. This event happened the day after the secretarygeneral met with President Trump. It is just under an hour. [applause] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As our guests are being seated im steven knapp, president of im steven knapp, president of George Washington university and im pleased to welcome you. When you do have the opportunity to look outside, we have a balcony here with a broad view of our nations capital. This is an excellent symbol of what it means to be the Largest University in the heart of our nations capital. It affords an excellent of our monument, the monument here. We like to think of that as the monument of George Washington university. And this location is extraordinary. If you drew a line from the state Department White house, it would intersect where we are sitting now. That tells you a little bit about the importance of this location. Toaffords us an opportunity have important discussions of events of global significance. I would like to welcome you to todays discussion. Nato in the age of uncertainty, a conversation with the secretary general of the nato. We are honored he could make time during his brief visit to washington to come to our campus. Im pleased with knowledge to acknowledge members of the diplomatic unity for being with us today. Particularly, let me acknowledge his excellency, the the ambassador of bulgaria. Ambassador of georgia. We also have with us the former governor of the commonwealth of virginia, james gilmore. And i would like to extend another welcome to kurt volker. He is now the executive director of the Mccain Institute at Arizona State university. I have to say that as the president in my 10th year here having lived on campus a block from here, i live in a house called the f street house. I mention that because it is where some of the founding discussions for the creation of the nato took place. So we have a pretty intimate, historical connection here. Other connections of George Washington university to nato include the role as the former Elliott School alumni. Include the late general, nato supreme allied commander from 1993 to 1997. And the honorable rose who began her ceremony last year, the first woman to hold that post. It is now my great pleasure to introduce his excellency, Jens Stoltenberg. Jens stoltenberg became the 13th secretary general of nato in october 2014. He began his career at the Norwegian Ministry of environment after earning his postgraduate degree in economics from the university of oslo. He was first elected to his countrys parliament in 1993 and served in a variety of leadership roles. Including that of minister of energy and finance. He served as Prime Minister from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2005 to 2013. As Prime Minister he led the transformation of norways armed forces and increased the highest Capital Expenditure rates and regularly committed norwegian troops to nato peacekeeping. Among his international assignments, he has chaired the United Nations Highlevel Panel on systemwide coherence and his highlevel Advisory Group on Climate Change financing. He also served as u. S. Special envoy on Climate Change. , heecretary general of nato has enhanced transatlantic cooperation and strengthened ties with the European Union to secure peace and Economic Development in europe and beyond. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. [applause] mr. Stoltenberg thank you so much dr. Knapp for those kind words. And thank you to all of you for having me here today. It is a great pleasure to meet you all. Because to be here today, it is one of the most recognized institutions when it comes to educating leaders, especially within diplomacy. And as you mentioned, in nato, we have several people who have gotten their education from the elliot school. And we work very closely with the secretary general who is a graduate from the Elliott School. He will share the debate with me. And he is also a graduate from these schools. So the students at this university and at the Elliott School are the leaders of tomorrow. And therefore, it is a great honor for me to see you and to meet you. I have to say that it isnt only because this is a very recognized institution that i am delighted to be here, but i am also delighted to be here because originally, my plan was to become an academic. So my plan was to do Research Within economics. I started to teach at the university of oslo in economics. And i did that for two years. Then i was off to become the deputy minister of the state of the environment in norway. I promised myself and my wife that i would only stay there for one or two years and then i would go back into academic life. That is a promise i havent been able to keep. Ive stayed in politics since 1990. And i feel that my chances for doing an academic career has diminished. So therefore, i like to visit institutions like this because it is the closest i come to the any kind of academic life. If you fail as an academic, you can become a Prime Minister. [laughter] mr. Stoltenberg i will be very brief. The idea is that we will have an interaction. So i will just share with you some brief remarks or reflections and then we will be available for questions so we can have some discussion. What i will say is that nato is the most successful alliance in history for two reasons. Reason number one is that we have been loyal to our core value, our core task, ever since we were founded in 1949. And that is that we are an alliance we have promised to protect each other. One for all, all for one. If one allied is attacked, it triggers a response from the whole alliance. And this strength of the unity of the alliance has been the main reason why the alliance has been so successful. And the strength of nato is not aimed at provoking conflict, but the strength of nato is to prevent the conflict. And by delivering credible deterrence, we have been able for close to seven decades, 70 years, to be able to prevent conflict and armed aggression against any Nato Alliance country. That is a great success, especially in europe. Because in europe, we were fighting each other since the end of the Second World War, but since the foundation of nato there have been no more these conflicts, at least amongst nato allies in europe. No nato ally has been attacked. So, the unity, one for all, all for one, is the main reason why nato has been such a successful alliance. The other reason is that nato has been able to adapt to change. So when the world is changing, nato is changing. For almost 40 years, nato was focused on only one task that was to deter the soviet union from attacking western europe. Nato allied countries. And we were quite successful. The cold war ended without firing a single shot. And it ended in a peaceful way. The berlin wall came down and people started to ask whether nato was needed anymore. Nato eitheras that had to go out of business or out of area. And we did go out of area after the fall of the berlin wall, the end of the cold war. We helped end the ethnic wars in the balkans. We also helped fight terrorism in afghanistan. And we did Crisis Management beyond our borders. We did that from the beginning of the 1990s until today. But now, nato has to change again. Because we have to continue to manage crisis beyond our borders. In the northn, africa region. But at the same time, we have to come back to europe and focus once again on europe. And that is especially the case after the illegal annexation of crimea and the use of force against russias more assertive behavior, especially against ukraine. Therefore, nato is now implementing the biggest reinforcement to the collective thense since the end of cold war. We are fixing the response force. And were deploying forces both to the baltic countries and in the southeast of the alliance. So we are adapting, once again, to respond to a more challenging and difficult security environment. And again, the message is that we are investing in defense not to promote conflict but to prevent conflict. And therefore what we do is defensive. It is proportionate, and it is measured in a way that we dont want to provoke a new cold war, we dont want a new arms race and we continue to seek dialogue with russia. Based on the idea that there is no contradiction between strength and dialogue. We strongly believe that as long as nato is united, and as long as nato is firm and predictable, then we can and should engage in political dialogue with russia because russia is our neighbor. Russia is there to stay. We have to manage the relationship with russia in the best possible way because it is in both our and russias interests to defuse the tensions. To reduce tensions and find better ways to live together. This was the main issue i discussed with President Trump yesterday in the white house. And his security team. This will be the main issue. Were going to discuss when nato leaders meet in may in brussels. This is the main issue i hope to discuss with you in the coming hours. Think you so much. Im ready to take your questions. Thank you. [applause] mr. Volker thank you, secretary general. Thank you for those remarks. Again, my name is kurt volker, im the executive director of the Mccain Institute for international leadership, part of Arizona State university. And i am a proud alumnus of Elliott School even before it was called the Elliott School. Longer ago than i care to state publicly. It has been a great privilege to have gone here and to have had a career built on that. Secretary general, i will open up the questions and answers with you and then we will turn to the audience here to ask questions. A few at a time. I do want to give priority to students here at the Elliott School. So students, think about what you want to ask and get your hands up early. Secretary general, i want to start with the first question for you. We have heard from President Trump and this administration both during the course of the president ial campaign and since then, many things. Nato is obsolete, nato is not obsolete. Nato allies need to pay their share. We decide to defend them whether they pay their dues. When chancellor merkel was here, it was talked about how much germany owes the United States. Nato needs to reform. It needs to do with counterterrorism. We want to Work Together with russia. Russia is a threat. Russia intervened in our election just about everything you can imagine. You could chart this and say there has been a progression over time, a movement, and you have had a lot of interaction with the president. I know you have been on the phone with him and you had a meeting here with him in washington. You met with secretary mattice at the defense minister meeting. You met with Rex Tillerson and you met the Vice President on the security council. I want you, in your own words, where do you see the u. S. Administration on nato today . How do you characterize u. S. Policy, u. S. Support, u. S. Interest and concern . Mr. Stoltenberg the message underneath nato has been consistent. In all my interactions, in all our conversations and also with the president and Rex Tillerson and his whole team. The message has been all the time that they are strongly committed to nato. That they see the value, and they want to make sure that nato continues to adapt. And both the strong commitment to nato, which was reaffirmed yesterday in the meeting in the white house. The president also expressed to me a few days after he was elected on the phone. I welcome the message about commitment. I also welcome the message about how nato has to adapt. But President Trump and secretary mattis, underlined the importance that nato has to do more. I welcome that. When they stress the importance of fair burden sharing in nato, we need that. We need nato allies to invest more in defense. We have to remember that some ies declared theynia will meet the 2 target. Declared they will meet the 2 target next year. So nato is adapting. Nato is changing. We welcome the strong focus from other organizations on the need to continue. Mr. Volker very good. Do you believe that allies are responding to this call to spend more on defense . In case you didnt hear the answer, he said absolutely, they are going to 2 and beyond. [laughter] again, you have articulated the u. S. Support for nato. But part of the question for the u. S. Is, are the allies ready to support nato . Mr. Stoltenberg yes, we have turned a corner. What we have seen is that after many years of cuts in defense spending across europe and canada, we actually saw in 2016, we saw for the first time a significant increase in defense spending across europe and canada. And we saw an increase of 3. 8 . Or 10 billion u. S. Dollars. And that is a significant increase to the amount of money for defense. We still have a long way to go. And much remains. But at least the europeans have started to move in the right direction. As i said, some allies already meet the 2 guidelines. Declared they will be it this year or next year. It this year or next year. So what we discussed with the president yesterday was how we need to keep up the momentum so that we are able to continue. In 2014what we promised when he made a defense pledge, was to stop the cuts with gradual increases and move towards 2 over the decade. We have started to do that. And my top interest has been to spendingdefense because it is important for the support of the whole alliance. What we call the defense investment pledge is not only about spending. It is about spending more but also spending better. To be more efficient. To work closer together. And it is about to have the capabilities we need in nato and it is about the contributions to nato operations. Very often we speak about the pledge, about cash capabilities and contributions. All that is important at the same time. Mr. Volker in your remarks, you said nato wanted to deal with russia from a position of strength and to have deterrence in defense, but also to have dialogue to Work Together with russia. Does russia want to Work Together with nato . Mr. Stoltenberg yes and no. We see some areas where theyre willing to work and other areas where we see it is much more difficult to establish any kind of understanding or dialogue. But we have to continue to work for dialogue. Because the world is safer when russia and nato are able to speak, to talk, and to strengthen and improve our relationship. And it is hard to predict how the relationship between nato and russia will be in the future. But im absolutely certain that we have to do whatever we can to defuse the tension and to work to avoid a new cold war. So that as i we have the approach of russia with defense and dialogue. This is also something which is based on my own experience as a politician. Because norway, as you all know, is bordering russia to the north. We have a land border and we have a border in the sea. The continental shelf. Fishers, and so on. And in norway, we were able to workinga pragmatic, relationship with the soviet union during the cold war on issues like energy and border to sea, environment, fishery, and military issues where we had the search and rescue teams working together. We were in regular contact with the Russian Armed forces of the north. This cooperation in the north between norway, a nato ally, and russia, takes place not despite norways membership in nato but but because of norways relationship in nato. Our membership in nato provided the strengths and the platform to engage with russia. So i strongly believe that we should not be afraid to talk to the russians. They are there to stay. They are our biggest neighbor. And it will help all of us if we are able to improve the relationship with russia. Mr. Volker a final question from me than we are going to pick from the audience and students in particular. Did you and the president discuss ukraine and how does ukraine fit into the scenario of russia relations and giving ukraine a sense of security . Mr. Stoltenberg we discussed ukraine. Of course we are concerned about the situation in Eastern Ukraine. And the fact that russia illegally annexed a part of ukraine, crimea. It is the first time they have done it by force. This is big for ukraine and it underlines the relationship in europe. It has been so important for peace and stability in europe. So nato, the United States, nato allies, provide support to ukraine. We help them mobilize defense structures, to armed forces. Train them. Different trust funds for cyber and control. Nato and nato allies provide political and practical support to ukraine. At the same time, i think it is important to understand that it isnt only about ukrai

© 2025 Vimarsana